Proximity payment devices are in widespread use. A well known standard for proximity payment devices has been promulgated by MasterCard International Incorporated, the assignee hereof, and is referred to as “PayPass”. A proximity payment device often includes a wireless communication interface to transmit a payment account number and/or other information to a point of sale (POS) terminal. The wireless interface often includes a radio frequency identification integrated circuit (RFID IC) and an antenna to receive a power signal from and/or communicate with the POS terminal.
Automated equipment has been developed to personalize the blanks used in producing proximity payment cards. Personalizing a blank often includes storing a payment account number and/or other information in an RFID IC portion of the blank.
Proximity payment devices are often card-shaped and resemble a standard credit card in size. For this reason, a significant proportion of the above mentioned automated equipment is designed to handle blanks the size of standard credit cards, i.e., the well-known ID-1 standard in terms of dimensions.
There have been proposals to issue proximity payment devices that are smaller than the standard sized card. One issue associated with such proposals is that a significant proportion of automatic equipment cannot readily handle proximity payment device that are smaller than a standard sized payment card.